August 4, 2009

‘Disappearing Destinations,’ 37 Places to Visit Before THEY Die

A book I haven’t read but ecotourists might want to look at: Disappearing Destinations: 37 Places in Peril and What Can Be Done to Help Save Them (Vintage, 400 pp., $15.95, paperback). Kimberly Lisagor and Heather Hansen won the American Society of Journalists and Authors 2009 Outstanding Book Award for general nonfiction for this collection of travel essays on spots that face an arsenal of threats, including logging (Lapland), mining (Appalachia), overdevelopment (the Galápagos), rising waters (the Maldives), and melting permafrost (the Alps). Pico Iyer writes in his foreword that “many of the marvels of our collective inheritance are disappearing, and because of human neglect or corruption or greed,” and Lisagor and Hansen sought out spots that, if unique, represent the dangers facing many other places.